Desperate times - desperate crimes
How should David Davies provide for his family?
Introduction
This interactive story is centered around the fictitious Davies family living on an upland farm in Shropshire in the middle of the nineteenth century. Although the story is made-up, wherever possible we have used real documents that refer to real people and real events to illustrate the family's plight. The parents of the family are David, an agricultural labourer and his wife May. They have six children: Elizabeth aged 13, Mary aged 12, John aged 10, the twins William and May aged 9 and the baby Sarah aged 2.
The story begins
 The winter of 1859/60 had been harsh; December, January and particularly February had been bitterly cold with extensive frosts.
Work on the farm had been very difficult in February with the ground frozen for much of the time. David Davies had been laid-off and had been paid no wages by the farm owner for the first two weeks of February. This meant that the family was in a very poor state. Elizabeth and Mary had been working at The Hall the previous summer, but the owners had left to run the family plantation in the West Indies and closed up the Hall thus leaving the girls, and many others, with no work.
A typical family farmyard in the second half of the 19th century
[Shropshire Archive reference: PH/S/14/1]
|
The severe frost of February had meant that David could not do his usual work, but was put to help the shepherd. He spent much of his time carrying feed for the sheep. It was at this time that David identified a sick ewe and decided to hasten its death and use the carcass to provide extra food for the family. He would tell the shepherd that the carcass had been carried off by foxes, who were becoming a problem in the prolonged cold weather. Already they had taken a few elderly ewes. His plan succeeded for a while and family were able to eat some sustaining food.
The cold continued and David was laid-off again. The family was now in crisis.
Continue
David saw four choices open to him. Which one should he choose?
- Steal another sheep: Go
- Put the older children into service: Go
- Leave the family and go to seek better paid work: Go
- Put all the family into the workhouse: Go
Return to top of page
|
